Shares of Natural Resource Partners ( NRP - Get Report) were falling 18.4% to $5.65 on heavy trading volume Wednesday after the oil, gas, and coal company announced a reduction of its quarterly dividend as part of a long-term plan to strengthen its balance sheet and reduce debt. Natural Resource Partners lowered its quarterly dividend by 75% to 9 cents a share from 35 cents a share. The new dividend will be payable on May 14 to all shareholders of record as of the close of business on May 5.

The company said the lower dividend will help increase its estimated distribution coverage ratio for 2015 to over 4.0x, and will result in about $130 million addition cash for debt reduction annually. Natural Resource Partners will use the excess cash to pay off about $500 million in debt by the end of 2017.

Natural Resource Partners said it also plans to improve its consolidated Debt/Adjusted EBITDA from 4.9x on Dec. 31, 2014 to 3.5x by the end of 2017. About 3.1 million shares of Natural Resource Partners were traded by 1:04 p.m. Wednesday, above the company's average trading volume of about 502,000 shares a day. Separately, TheStreet Ratings team rates NATURAL RESOURCE PARTNERS LP as a Hold with a ratings score of C. TheStreet Ratings Team has this to say about their recommendation: "We rate NATURAL RESOURCE PARTNERS LP (NRP) a HOLD. The primary factors that have impacted our rating are mixed -- some indicating strength, some showing weaknesses, with little evidence to justify the expectation of either a positive or negative performance for this stock relative to most other stocks. The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its revenue growth and expanding profit margins. However, as a counter to these strengths, we also find weaknesses including feeble growth in the company's earnings per share, deteriorating net income and generally higher debt management risk." Highlights from the analysis by TheStreet Ratings Team goes as follows:

• NRP's very impressive revenue growth greatly exceeded the industry average of 20.3%. Since the same quarter one year prior, revenues leaped by 50.8%. This growth in revenue does not appear to have trickled down to the company's bottom line, displayed by a decline in earnings per share.
• The gross profit margin for NATURAL RESOURCE PARTNERS LP is rather high; currently it is at 50.23%. Despite the high profit margin, it has decreased significantly from the same period last year. Despite the mixed results of the gross profit margin, NRP's net profit margin of 6.93% compares favorably to the industry average.
• Net operating cash flow has declined marginally to $53.66 million or 6.77% when compared to the same quarter last year. Despite a decrease in cash flow of 6.77%, NATURAL RESOURCE PARTNERS LP is in line with the industry average cash flow growth rate of -12.96%.
• The company, on the basis of change in net income from the same quarter one year ago, has significantly underperformed when compared to that of the S&P 500 and the Oil, Gas & Consumable Fuels industry. The net income has significantly decreased by 81.6% when compared to the same quarter one year ago, falling from $46.98 million to $8.65 million.
• The debt-to-equity ratio is very high at 2.05 and currently higher than the industry average, implying increased risk associated with the management of debt levels within the company. Along with the unfavorable debt-to-equity ratio, NRP maintains a poor quick ratio of 0.85, which illustrates the inability to avoid short-term cash problems.
• You can view the full analysis from the report here: NRP Ratings Report